Nightmare
by Sky's Breaker
Summary: Being a child during a war is tough, but when you were one of few to escape with your life, it was scary. Luckily, she had someone that helped her. Contains OC, like almost all my stories. Might want to watch Forward Unto Dawn to understand a bit better.


AN: So this is based off of Forward Unto Dawn, the series. I was laying down, trying to sleep, when the idea of 'how would a child fit into this?' popped up.

Even though it happened twenty five years ago, I still remember it like yesterday; my leg surely does, anyway. When Circinius IV was under attack by the Covenant in 2526, I was merely ten years old. It seemed like a nightmare at the time, one that I couldn't wake up from and that felt very real.

My parents never liked the city, they liked being in the middle of nowhere, where they had to depend on themselves. Unfortunately, I was their only child, so I often wandered around the area near our house. Nothing ever was waiting for me. Not until one night.

I had wandered off to a meadow I had known all my life, planning on stargazing because there were very little clouds that night. I remember laying on my back, watching the stars and planets appear one by one as the sun faded, hoping to see a shooting star. If I saw one, I would get a wish.

It took a little, it was completely dark, until I saw something advancing towards this planet. More specifically, towards my location. I stood up and began to run opposite the way I had came when I realized that it might just hit me.

I heard the whooshing sound as it made it's descent, it was loud enough that I covered my ears as I ran away. I wasn't aware of where I was running until I realized I had made one giant circle. The whooshing sound had lasted for a minute, but the sound it made on impact still resided in my ears.

I ran back to my home, only to see it in ruins. It looked like there had been an explosion, except I hadn't heard anything remotely similar to an explosion. I was also unaware that something was stalking me until I began to climb through the wreckage of my house. I realized that something was behind me only after I saw my parents' lifeless bodies where our living room used to be.

There was a noise behind me, something breathing heavily. I spun around to see a monster that stood at least a foot taller than me. It had an elongated nose and mouth, and was tan in colour. It held a strange weapon in it's hand; one that had purple spikes sticking out of it.

All in all, I did the only two things that I could; screamed and ran away. I could hear it or something else following me as I tried to remember the way to the road. I tripped once and ripped the dress that my mother had put me in that morning. The white material was frayed and had dirt splattered across the front. My knee might have been bruised from the fall, but I kept running.

Something was still following me by the time I emerged from the trees and onto the dirt road that went near our house. I could hear it's breathing close by as I ran behind a bush, hoping I'd somehow avoided it.

I was wrong; it jumped out at me and tried to grab me. There was a hill behind me, so I began to scramble up, until I felt a sharp pain in my leg. It felt like a hundred needles broke my skin at the same time, but when I turned around, the monster from earlier was biting my leg.

I began to cry out it pain, but the strangest thing happened that silenced me. The monster that had bitten my leg, was on the ground, dead. There was a clicking sound not too far off, so I stayed still. Though, tears overwhelmed me and I began to curl up on the ground and cry. The pain was almost unbearable.

A tree branch broke near me, and I tensed up. What if it was another one of those monsters, coming to finish the job?

Suddenly, a bright light enveloped me, and what I saw before I shut my eyes because of the brightness seemed to be a really tall person covered in armour. Why would he be covered in armour? I opened my eyes again when I felt myself being lifted off the ground.

I had yet to see the actual puncture wounds on my leg, but I had an idea of what they looked like. In the distance, I could see a military vehicle. I was handed off to a dark skinned girl who was far older than me. I trusted her as she put me down on the floor of the vehicle, hoping she knew what she was doing.

As the vehicle began to move, people were whispering, but I barely registered it. I began to cry again as the vehicle stopped once more, this time, someone was lain on the ground while the giant person kneeled before him. The person on the ground had blood staining his leg, from what I could see, and a hole in it, too.

The events after that were very confusing. I was lifted off of the vehicle, and everyone began to run away, except for the big person. I heard some indistinctive yelling in the distance, but it was getting farther and farther away as we went into the forest.

When we reached a small structure, the other girl that was with us was put on the ground, and from where I was, all I could see was something in her stomach. One of the others was crying, as the girl on the ground had stopped breathing.

The big person returned, picked me up and led the others deeper into the forest. Something big was behind us, I could hear the heavy thud of it's footsteps as we ran. I craned my neck to see what it was, and some far distance away stood a really tall and bulky monster with glowing things on it's one arm.

I soon felt like falling a short distance as the big person jumped off a ledge and quickly hid in a crevice with the others. The person who had been crying earlier suddenly ran from our hiding spot and bolted across the forest floor.

The giant thing that was hunting us watched him, so I was once again handed to the dark skinned girl. She gave my leg a quick look, before watching what was happening. The monster then stepped right in front of us, and I felt a hand over my mouth, to stop me from making any noise.

One second, the big man was laying on the ground after getting swatted by the monster, and the next he's on it's back, sticking something inside it. Next thing I know the monster explodes in an orange goo that goes flying everywhere.

The big person picked me up again and held me as we boarded another, this time aerial, military vehicle. As I was being put in a seat, the big person asked me my name.

"Annabelle," I answered. "Do you have a name?"

He seemed to think on it for a minute. "Just call me Chief," he answered finally.

-:-

Of course, that happened nearly twenty five years ago. Since then, I had traveled back to Earth, and was exploring an ancient civilization that thrived in a now jungle terrain. They were there probably five thousand years ago.

I was exploring, until I was picked up by something invisible. "Let me go!" I yelled out.

"Be quiet, human," the invisible thing said. It was then that I pieced together that this was an Elite, or a Sangheili. Over the years since my first run in with the Covenant, I had made it my goal to learn what I could about the different species. I knew basic information about the Unggoy, the Hurragok, the Kig-Yar, and the Sangheili. The others were too scary to get a closer look at them, unfortunately.

I was, however, still under the impression that the Elites were still on the Covenant side. "Why take me, I haven't done anything! Let me go!" I continued to yell at it while it walked through the forest with me. I was about to open my mouth to say something else, but instead, I was dropped on the ground in front of a group of UNSC Marines. That, and someone from my past.


End file.
